First-hand account of Marciano's diet and workout regimen (1952)

Question for both sides: How often was Marciano training like this? Didn't @mcvey mention that Marciano was unusual not for his volume per day, but for doing it constantly, day in and day out? If so, are there any sources that will give us an idea how often he was in camp per year?

 

Settle down angry clown. I dont believe in all of Marcianos incrediable training feats either. Im just a bit skepitical of these journalists. They werent around Rocky all the time and I doubt Rocky's trainer and chef are going to go over everything they did.

 

It’s always wonderful to see old myths get busted. It is clear that Rocky was not in some kind of class by himself in regards to hard training.

 

Im not ignoring it Im just saying this isnt giving us a complete view of Rocky's training schedule . Im sure those reports were Rocky's workout for the day when those journalists payed him a visit. If you, or anyone else for that matter, wanna believe these short hand accounts represent all of Marciano's training great but dont pretend its somekind of gospel. Cheers

 

Probably because it's a very individual centered, conservative combat sport with 300 years of history, lots of oral traditions that pass on through gyms, and deep connections in the culture.

 

There are children who run 100 miles a week in Kenya, not sure what point you're making there.

 

I gave a little more thought to this question, and upon consideration, I think easy access to high quality film makes a big difference.

MMA doesn't have the same mythic position for its early fighters. You won't see many MMA fans who believe that Royce Gracie steps out of a time machine and chokes out Daniel Cormier. In fact, the questionable claims often come from the opposite direction -- there are a surprising number of random forum posters who believe that *they, personally* could have won the first UFC against a lineup of 220+ pound, roided-to-the-gills combat sport athletes.

So why the big discrepancy? My guess is because the sport is young, a lot of the fans entered it after it had fully developed, and there's always been access to film of the first few UFCs in high quality color. The old guys simply don't know as much as the modern ones, and it's obvious when you watch them. The fighters themselves often say the same thing, which is another difference from boxing -- one I'm less sure of the source for.

A good test case exception to prove the rule is Rickson Gracie. Rickson was more or less the enforcer for the Gracie family of jiujitsu fighters in Brazil. He fought proto-MMA streetfights in the days before MMA was a sport. He'd go to rival martial arts schools and basically beat up the best students as a marketing device for Gracie style jiujitsu. Consequently, we only have competition footage of him when he was in his 30s and early 40s. For the most part, the remaining footage is poor quality, shaky home videos without any context except the marketing patter of Rickson's brother giving a biased voice-over. And the fights generally happened in Brazil, in unsanctioned throwdowns, which makes a lot of it difficult to verify for someone in the Anglosphere.

Some of the fights didn't get filmed at all. One blatant example: Rickson pulverized Anjoh literally behind closed doors, before throwing his mangled opponent back in front of the Japanese press cameras when he was done beating on him.

Most of Rickson's abilities in his prime are extrapolated backward from the way he crushed very overmatched opponents in early MMA when he was an old man, combined with sparring stories told by his students when he was an even older man.

For all intents and purposes, the information a normal fan has on Rickson is very similar to what a boxing fan would have on an obscure fighter from the 1930s, who hit the big time after WWII when out of prime. And the myth making is very similar.